Love Burns Read Online Free PDF Page A

back. Teague’s face turned red, but he maintained his big, fake smile. Teague was squeezing as hard as he could, and Calder just stood there smiling and squeezing back. Beads of sweat popped out on Teague’s forehead and began trickling down his face.
    Finally Teague leaned in close, his eyes gone completely reptilian. “I’ll find a way to end you if it’s the last thing I do,” he said, maintaining his angry fake smile the whole time. “And how I treat my daughter is my own damn business.”
    “How you mis treat women, especially when you’re in my police station, is entirely my business,” Calder said, returning the fake smile.
    Then a scuffle broke out in the crowd and both men hurried over to break it up before it could flare out of control.
    * * * * *
    Olivia stood with her aunt Nora and her uncle Kenneth and their nineteen-year-old daughter, Sailor, watching Quinton and Calder closely.
    “Those two idiots should just grab a ruler and whip it out and see whose is bigger,” Kenneth snorted.
    “Kenneth, really ,” Nora said disapprovingly. “How crude.”
    Kenneth rolled his eyes. “I’m going to go get a drink,” he said, and walked off.
    “I’m going to keep an eye out for you-know-who,” Sailor said, and headed in the opposite direction. Sailor, like her mother, was clad head to toe in designer wear – Marchesa, today – and had just been presented at the Ice Dragon Cotillion.
    Nora glanced over at Olivia. “I hear that Calder brokered a deal to have the charges against you dropped in exchange for the town of North Lyndvale dropping the charges against that little twerp who burned our sign.”
    Olivia nodded. “Yes, so I’m told. Thanks again for bailing me out. I’m hoping that now Vromme is in town, we can have at least a temporary truce. Who’s the you-know-who Sailor is looking out for?” she added.
    Nora was scanning the crowd. “I think there’s a chance that your father has invited that Ichabod character here to publicly propose to you. He’s hoping that if Ichabod proposes in front of everyone, you’ll be pressured to say yes out of fear of offending Ichabod’s clan. I’m keeping an eye out for him.”
    “Seriously?” Olivia said in dismay. “Damn my father to hell and back again. And he knows I can’t leave. I’m mayor – I’m supposed to be present at these kinds of events.”
    Nora shrugged, her gaze never leaving the sea of faces. “You already stood up and introduced the team, and did the meet-and-greet. You’ve shown your face. If you have to hide out for the rest of the game, it won’t be that big a deal.”
    “Still,” Olivia said with annoyance. “It would be better for me to be here for the whole game. Why is he making it so difficult for me?”
    Nora choked out a cynical laugh. “Hello, have you met your father? Quinton wants what’s best for Quinton, and to hell with everyone else.”
    “I really appreciate you helping me out with this.”
    “Well, I wouldn’t want what happened to me to happen to you,” Nora said. She gave Olivia a sidelong glance. “Arranged marriage.”
    “But aren’t you and Kenneth happy?” Olivia asked in surprise. Had that minor flare-up between the two of them been something more than that?
    She and her mother had already fled town and gone into hiding before Nora and Kenneth had married, so she didn’t know that much about the circumstances.
    Nora shrugged. “We’re…content. We tolerate each other. We take a lot of separate vacations. I know about his secretary, and I’m frankly delighted that she does things I prefer not to.”
    Ugh. TMI , Olivia thought. She’d had no idea that Nora’s marriage was so depressing. She’d always seen Nora and Kenneth being pleasant to each other in public, but then they were both the type to keep up appearances.
    Up until only a few years ago, arranged marriages had been much more common for fertile young female dragon shifters, and it was a custom that was slow to die out.